Each person has a fate and from it he is saved

It is difficult for modern man bathed in science to consider the concept of fate but the fact is that each human being, family, ethnic group and race (and all human beings) has a fate. The individual's fate is there for him right from the moment of his birth. He cannot escape his fate. All he can do is study it, understand it and seek realistic overcoming of that fate.

In overcoming his fate the individual becomes enlightened to his real self and is liberated from human suffering (which, as Gautama Buddha said 2500 years ago, is due to identification with a false, ego separated self).

If insanity runs in your family that is your fate; if personality disorder runs in your family that is your fate; if you are a black man in a world controlled by white folk that is your fate.

You cannot escape from your fate by sugar coating it for you are experiencing it right from your birth. From your birth you experience racial discrimination and can only pretend that it does not affect you.

In my family is a serious medical issue (mitochondria deficiencies; cytochrome c oxidase deficiency) that makes us feel weak and inadequate and we compensate with drive to over adequacy, power and superiority.

My grandfather sought to become superior and powerful; my father did and I did. Some of my children do. I cannot deny this fate for it is both biological and sociological in origin. All I can do is study it and understand it.

I understand that the pursuit of superior ego self-causes me suffering and anxiety and is not in my best interest. I do not have to pretend that I am very bright, wealthy and powerful (that would be delusion disorder); I ask: what is the alternative to the big ego self?

Since the pursuit of the big, powerful self is phenomenological and existential it follows that the solution to it is to ask if one can let go of that pursuit and still be alive.

Can I stop seeking a powerful ego self and still is alive on earth? Don't I need a powerful self to be able to master my environment?

Yes, I can live without an ego self. I can consciously choose not to seek becoming a powerful ego self and simply say that I do not know who I am and have void, emptiness where I had placed the ego false self. If I have inner void, no ego self, powerful or weak then what and who am I?

Gautama Buddha said that when the ego self is extinguished that one experiences not no self but ones real self, a kind of universal self that is one and simultaneously all selves, God.

If one lets go of the ego self-one regains awareness of the universal self, the oneself that all of us share and in it one is saved from the suffering of the ego self.

That is, in understanding ones ego type, seeing the pains it causes one and letting it go one attains salvation from psychological suffering.

One could not attain salvation if one did not pursue a false ego self that caused one psychological pain and one lets it go. That is to say that in ones problems, weakness lays ones salvation.

By the same token, if one is a black person in America and one is discriminated against by white folks one can understand the nature of racism, why white folks desire to feel superior to black folks (they feel small and looking down on black folks gives them false sense of bigness) and realizing that no human being can ever be superior to others one decides to not seek superiority.

In learning about human equality and behaving as such one attains a level of maturity seldom seen in white folks who fancy themselves superior to other people. That is to say that in black folks suffering lays the germ of their salvation. They cannot attain that salvation by denying their suffering, denying racism; they have to see racism for what it is, insanity, and learn its cure, human equality and love for all people regardless of race and gender.

CONCLUSION

One must embrace ones fate, study it, understand it and learn how to overcome it; in doing so one is saved.

What one cannot do is deny ones fate or wish for a different fate (or a different self). The moment you are born in a certain body and society your fate is set in stone. All that you can do is suffer what your fate gives you and learn to overcome that suffering and in doing so get to a non-suffering state.

Ozodi Thomas Osuji is from Imo State, Nigeria. He obtained his PhD from UCLA. He taught at a couple of Universities and decided to go back to school and study psychology. Thereafter, he worked in the mental health field and was the Executive Director of two mental health agencies. He subsequently left the mental health environment with the goal of being less influenced by others perspectives, so as to be able to think for himself and synthesize Western, Asian and African perspectives on phenomena. Dr Osuji’s goal is to provide us with a unique perspective, one that is not strictly Western or African but a synthesis of both. Dr Osuji teaches, writes and consults on leadership, management, politics, psychology and religions. Dr Osuji is married and has three children; he lives at Anchorage, Alaska, USA.